“Why, that’s the Brownes!” she exclaimed.  “Are they home? and who is that tow-headed chap with them?  Not Allen, surely?”

Hannah explained that the Brownes were expected that afternoon, and that an Irish lord was coming with them, and that half Ridgeville had gone to the station to meet them.

“Irish fiddlesticks!  After Augusta’s money, of course,” Miss Betsey returned, with a snort, but whatever else she might have said was cut short by the appearance of the phaeton with Allen and Daisy in it.

“I wonder who she is.  I hope she stares well.  Seems to me I have seen her before,” Miss Betsey said, adding, as Daisy half inclined her head, and smiled upon her, “Who can she be?  Somebody they have picked up to make a splurge with.  A widow, at any rate.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now to have heard from the cook at Ridge House that an English lady was to accompany the family home, and—­yes, her name was McPherson, too—­Lady McPherson, the cook called her.  This is she, no doubt.”

“Lady McPherson,” Miss Betsey repeated “There is no Lady McPherson except my brother’s wife, Lady Jane, and she is almost as dried up and yellow by this time as I am, while this lady is young, and—­good gracious!  It is she!  The Jezebel!  Lady McPherson indeed!” and Miss Betsey sprang to her feet so energetically as to startle her visitor, who had no idea what she meant.

The face seen on the terrace at Aberystwyth years ago had come back to Miss Betsey, and she felt sure that she had just seen it again, smiling upon Allen Browne as it had then smiled upon Lord Hardy.  But why in widow’s weeds?  Was Archie dead? she asked herself, as she resumed her seat and tried to seem natural.

Hannah saw that something ailed her; but she was too well bred to ask any questions, and soon took her leave.

Alone with her own thoughts, Miss Betsey fell to soliloquizing: 

“That letter was written long ago; Archie may be dead, and this painted gambler has gulled the Brownes and come to America as their guest, with the snipper-snapper of a Hardy.  I must find out if Archie is dead, and what has become of the girl.”

After she had had her tea.  Miss Betsey ordered her old white horse and old-fashioned buggy to be brought round, and started for a drive, taking the Ridgeville road and passing the house of the Brownes, where the family were assembled upon the wide piazza, enjoying the evening breeze.  At a glance she singled out Daisy, who was reclining gracefully in an arm-chair, with a pond-lily at her throat, relieving the blackness of her dress, and Allen Browne leaning over and evidently talking to her.

As Miss McPherson drove very slowly, and looked earnestly toward the house, which was at a little distance from the road, Mrs. Browne, who was watching her, ventured down the walk, bowing half hesitatingly, for she had never been on terms of intimacy with Miss Betsey, of whom she stood a little in awe.